BANGUI (Reuters) - Central African Republic president Faustin-Archange Touadera sacked his defence minister on Tuesday evening, according to a state radio broadcast, amid growing violence that threatens to spin the country out of control.

The dismissal of Levy Yakete, who was blacklisted by a United Nations Security Council committee in 2014 for his role in a bloody 2013 civil war, was part of a wider Cabinet reshuffle. The statement did not say if his dismissal was related directly to growing violence.

Thousands have died and a fifth of Central Africans have fled a conflict that broke out after mainly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted President Francois Bozize in 2013, provoking a backlash from Christian anti-balaka militias.

Although unrest has since subsided, fighting has spiked this year and the United Nations warned this month that ethnic fighting could descend again into a much larger conflict if combatants are not disarmed.

National security forces are too weak to tackle armed groups and counter the spillover from conflicts in neighbouring countries, said the United Nations.

In a sign of the deteriorating security situation, six Red Cross volunteers were killed in an attack on a health centre in southeastern Central African Republic on Aug. 3, the aid organisation said last month.